Festa Frawli — Strawberry festival in Mgarr, Malta
Do you know how insane it is to celebrate Strawberries?
Hey Pal,
It’s another postcard from me to you. Last Sunday, the 16th of April, 2023, David and I went to Mgarr, Malta, for Festa Frawli, the Strawberry Festival.
The festival celebrates strawberries. Every pastry, drink, or decor featured strawberries. I feel so sad that I didn’t take so many photos, but I will tag some videos, and you can check out some great posts online.
In my defence, there were so many people, and because we arrived a bit late, we couldn’t even get close to the pastry queue because it was just insane.
A short history of the Festa Frawli
The word frawla (strawberry) is known to have been first recorded in Maltese dictionaries in the 1760s. In the last three years, research on the Maltese frawla was carried out and this concluded that strawberries always grew in abundance in Mgarr, especially in April and May. (Jillian Malia, 2019)
The festival featured fresh strawberries, drawings from kids, music performances, dance, pastries, smoothies, alcohol, and decor.
Hosted in front of the Church, which happens to be Mgarr Square.
We welcomed two Nigerians to town.
Two guys came in from Nigeria a day before Festa Frawli, and we met them at the festival. Ade joined us a couple of minutes later (Ade moved just three weeks after we arrived in Malta, and we met up every chance we got, and this was not any different.
It was a great experience; we were loud, laughed hard, and talked about the crazy culture shocks like The Maltese taking breaks between 12–4 pm to have lunch, nap or do what they want. You’d come out to buy something and realise, “Oops! No one is at the store, and I might starve”.
We left the festival at about 4:30 pm, grabbed dinner at a kebab store in Buggibba and ran to catch up with the bus. Dave and I got home at past 10 pm. I went straight to the shower and then to bed.
I am excited to have new people come in from Nigeria. And who knows, you could be next.
Till I write to you again, Ciao.
I woke up on Monday, was still in the spirits of strawberry, and decided to treat myself. I couldn’t leave out this piece.
